USB printing gone (!!!)  

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

cool you can get like 10:1 ratio if you can spare the memory for the decompression. i bet theres quite a lot to be gained for models that have a lot of repeating geometry. that'd be neat to do some tests like that.

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

Posted by: Pepe le Vamp

but i love XON/XOFF
didn't know that the printer sent 'gimme more' packets. makes sense to me since its the one doing all the hard work. i wonder how well gcode compresses. be a pain in the bum to keep the dictionary in memory but i bet it compresses good.

my mk3 printer wont actually connect at anything other than 250,000baud.

Interesting. Mine will not; it only manages 115200

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

Posted by: Pepe le Vamp

but i love XON/XOFF
i wonder how well gcode compresses. be a pain in the bum to keep the dictionary in memory but i bet it compresses good.

Well, there is already a kind of standard for Packed Binary GCode.

my mk3 printer wont actually connect at anything other than 250,000baud.

The reason for that is that the ATMega2560 is configured for that statically and doesn't have automatic speed recognition that modems used to have (but they had to have every command prefixed with "AT" to be able to detect the speed). Now the ATMega8u2 firmware, not being Prusa specific, does recognize USB CDC ACM speed change commands, and then transmits over the TTL RS232 at the requested speed. So anything but 250kbps will not work. It'd be probably reasonable to simply make the ATMega8u2 ignore those commands and then you could set any baudrate on your computer and it'd keep working (on 250kbps internally). 

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

Posted by: vintagepc

Interesting. Mine will not; it only manages 115200

I'll try what mine accepts when I get home and take a more detailed look at how the firmware handles it.

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

Posted by: Vojtěch

Posted by: Pepe le Vamp

but i love XON/XOFF
i wonder how well gcode compresses. be a pain in the bum to keep the dictionary in memory but i bet it compresses good.

Well, there is already a kind of standard for Packed Binary GCode.

my mk3 printer wont actually connect at anything other than 250,000baud.

The reason for that is that the ATMega2560 is configured for that statically and doesn't have automatic speed recognition that modems used to have (but they had to have every command prefixed with "AT" to be able to detect the speed). Now the ATMega8u2 firmware, not being Prusa specific, does recognize USB CDC ACM speed change commands, and then transmits over the TTL RS232 at the requested speed. So anything but 250kbps will not work. It'd be probably reasonable to simply make the ATMega8u2 ignore those commands and then you could set any baudrate on your computer and it'd keep working (on 250kbps internally). 

I don't know why but I had to chuckle at the idea of sending my printer an ATDT command and having it start beeping like a dial up modem...

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

Posted by: vintagepc

I don't know why but I had to chuckle at the idea of sending my printer an ATDT command and having it start beeping like a dial up modem...

wow.... that brings back memories

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

I have my PC next to my printer and I have always had issues when printing  with USB so I just transfer to SD card and run it from the card.

I was wondering if anyone has tried this option on the SD card
https://blog.prusaprinters.org/easy-wireless-printing-with-flashair-sd-cards/

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

Comms Baud rate is fixed within the firmware:

// This determines the communication speed of the printer
#define BAUDRATE 115200

This is from Configuration.h in FW 3.7.0.  The same baud rate has been used since the Mk1 was released.

I have tried using higher baud rates (both 230400 and 250000) with OctoPrint on RPi 2 and 3, but unfortunately, it is very unreliable, even with the RPi serial port tweaks.  For those higher baud rates, I think hardware flow control is required.

And like other here, I used 2400 baud modems with the "ATtention" command to connect to my clients and to upload software.  Usually an all-night job 🙁

Peter

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

Posted by: PJR

Comms Baud rate is fixed within the firmware:

// This determines the communication speed of the printer
#define BAUDRATE 115200

This is from Configuration.h in FW 3.7.0.  The same baud rate has been used since the Mk1 was released.

I have tried using higher baud rates (both 230400 and 250000) with OctoPrint on RPi 2 and 3, but unfortunately, it is very unreliable, even with the RPi serial port tweaks.  For those higher baud rates, I think hardware flow control is required.

And like other here, I used 2400 baud modems with the "ATtention" command to connect to my clients and to upload software.  Usually an all-night job 🙁

 

Peter

 

I fondly remember adding "ATS11=10" to my modem init strings which would result in it dialing at warp speed and shaving seconds off the connection time... Those were the days 😀

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

Posted by: vintagepc

I fondly remember adding "ATS11=10" to my modem init strings which would result in it dialing at warp speed and shaving seconds off the connection time... Those were the days 😀

A bit off topic, but I remember having to use ATDP because my father didn't want to pay extra for the "privilege" of tone dialing.

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

Posted by: Sembazuru

Posted by: vintagepc

I fondly remember adding "ATS11=10" to my modem init strings which would result in it dialing at warp speed and shaving seconds off the connection time... Those were the days 😀

A bit off topic, but I remember having to use ATDP because my father didn't want to pay extra for the "privilege" of tone dialing.

WOW! that is old school.

i used to hide my passwords in my modem address book. it had built in memory for it. sure hack my windows 95 486 all you want bitchez looking for my dial up passwords in the registry - but you'll never guess to look in my modems firmware.

theres great content in this thread. i made a handy tool for this kinda situation - a pocket battery powered serial terminal. gives you cmos/ttl terminal (read only) with a tiny screen and it automatically detects the baud rate by timing the bit wiggles on the line.

warning: my channel is very silly

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

looks like you were right jovtech. they have removed it forever from the slicer software. they have time to make 3D arrows on the GUI but not time to implement features people use.

and if the tech support is anything to go by - they aren't even interested. only hope is to go to twitter where the stonewalling is exposed to the public.

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

USB printing was a nice feature... but I've since gotten the pronterface/python mess sorted out on my machine and like it more than through PS. 

I was planning to get a wifi SD card soon but the above filled the gap for me until that time.

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

If you do go down the Toshiba flashair route, buy a maximum of 32GB, to be honest even that is way bigger than what is needed.

The 64GB card has issues.

Once you have it connected, just save the g-code from slicer, open the folder where the card is, right click the file and click "Send to" (If using Windows) and select your networked Wi-Fi card and the file will be transferred ready to be selected from the printer.

Yes, it's more steps, but soon becomes second nature, plus you can use file explorer to manage what is on the SD card.

And as for baud rates, did anybody ever use RTTY or SITOR, those were the days! 45.45 and 100 baud, wireless, and what a range!!! 😀 

(With the right transmitter of course).

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

Posted by: chocki

If you do go down the Toshiba flashair route, buy a maximum of 32GB, to be honest even that is way bigger than what is needed.

The 64GB card has issues.

Once you have it connected, just save the g-code from slicer, open the folder where the card is, right click the file and click "Send to" (If using Windows) and select your networked Wi-Fi card and the file will be transferred ready to be selected from the printer.

Yes, it's more steps, but soon becomes second nature, plus you can use file explorer to manage what is on the SD card.

 

And as for baud rates, did anybody ever use RTTY or SITOR, those were the days! 45.45 and 100 baud, wireless, and what a range!!! 😀 

(With the right transmitter of course).

I've looked at clones/other wifi SD cards which are cheaper but the lack of any documentation on whether they work or not makes me rather hesitant to invest the time and money when  it's not a huge amount more for a known working and "officially" supported option.  I'm aware of the 32GB limit from the printer. 

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

these workarounds are all so awful 🙁 im sorry guys but it makes me cry

but according to the dude on the helpdesk who i should apologize regarding (its not his fault, im just pissed off), we can whinge at the developers on the gihub repo. hes going to pass the message on to the dev team about how pissed i am as well.

i also called josef prusa a knob on twitter. not sure if that will help or hurt, but its decisions like this that can sink a company's reputation like a stone. repeat after me fellas: dont, make, customers, depend, on, something, and, then, kill, it.

at least i have a good summer project for learning C++.

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

I too wasn't aware that SlicerPE had direct USB print, and I've been using Pronterface for that purpose since I purchased my printer last year...
You can easily write a PowerShell script to monitor your GCode folder, and have it launch Pronterface everytime you save a new file in there.
See for example https://superuser.com/questions/226828/how-to-monitor-a-folder-and-trigger-a-command-line-action-when-a-file-is-created

Although it is not as convenient as being able to print directly from Slicer, it's not half as as bad as needing to manually move SD cards back and forth. Just export the GCode, and Pronterface will launch with the file loaded.

My Novice 5 cents...

Ami

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

Posted by: ami.l

I too wasn't aware that SlicerPE had direct USB print, and I've been using Pronterface for that purpose since I purchased my printer last year...
You can easily write a PowerShell script to monitor your GCode folder, and have it launch Pronterface everytime you save a new file in there.
See for example https://superuser.com/questions/226828/how-to-monitor-a-folder-and-trigger-a-command-line-action-when-a-file-is-created

Although it is not as convenient as being able to print directly from Slicer, it's not half as as bad as needing to manually move SD cards back and forth. Just export the GCode, and Pronterface will launch with the file loaded.

My Novice 5 cents...

Ami

my GOD

this is actually a really clever answer. thank you sir. this is why we invented the internet.

RE: USB printing gone (!!!)

Does a FlashAir SD card work with the latest Firmware. It seems an option on the LCD menu, but does it work. My worlflow uses a Raspberry Pi 3 and Octoprint. Works well for me.